Vaccine developer Medicago’s latest contract means local jobs. That’s according to Mike Wanner, executive vice president of operations for Medicago. He took a few minutes to tell me why the contract, for potential future production with the U.S. Department of Defense, isn’t just good news for Medicago — it’s good news for Durham. In short, the contract means Medicago can now bid for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) projects. “The U.S. Government has needs for a large number of proteins, vaccines or pharmaceutical agents, so we fully expect that there will be solicitations soon,” he says, adding that the feds indicated solicitations could come as early as February, meaning there’s a strong possibility the local headcount would grow. “Depending on the size of the order, we would very likely need to staff up to meet the demands of it,” he says. “Of course, we don’t know that until we get the specific requirements.”